The film director didn’t mince his words when he spoke about turning down an OBE in 1977.

Ken Loach, whose films centre on social issues such as poverty, homelessness and benefits, told the Radio Times in 2001: “It’s all the things I think are despicable: patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the name of the British Empire, which is a monument of exploitation and conquest.

“I turned down the OBE because it’s not a club you want to join when you look at the villains who’ve got it.”

2. Danny Boyle

Richard Shotwell/AP
Danny Boyle.

The director and master behind the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony revealed that he turned down an honour because: “It’s just not me”.

Danny Boyle said it did not feel right to accept the award when thousands of people were involved in the planning and execution of the highly-praised opening ceremony.

3. Jim Broadbent

Jim Broadbent said in 2012: “I was offered an OBE a couple of years ago, but I said, ‘no’, and turned it down.”

The actor said that the honour should be given to those who help others.

He said: “I’m not that comfortable with actors receiving honours, partly because I think they ought to go to those who really help others.

“Besides, I like the idea of actors not being part of the Establishment.

“We’re vagabonds and rogues, and we’re not a part of the authorities and Establishment, really. If you mix the two together, things get blurry.”

4.Jon Snow

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Jon Snow.

The renowned journalist has declined an offer of an OBE.

Jon Snow reportedly said that he did so because he believed that working journalists should not take honours from those about whom they report.

He said: “I tried to find out why I’d been given it and was unable to get a clear answer or, indeed, to find out who had proposed me.”

5. Howard Gayle

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Howard Gayle.

Liverpool FC’s first black player turned down an MBE this year saying that his “ancestors would be turning in their graves after how Empire and Colonialism had enslaved them”.

Howard Gayle was nominated for the honour for his campaign work with Show Racism the Red Card.

He wrote on his Facebook page: “This is a decision that I have had to make and there will be others who may feel different and would enjoy the attraction of being a Member of the British Empire and those 3 letters after their name, but I feel that It would be a betrayal to all of the Africans who have lost their lives, or who have suffered as a result of Empire.”

“I get angry when I hear that word “empire”; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.”

He added: “I am not one of those who are obsessed with their roots, and I’m certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people.

“Benjamin Zephaniah OBE - no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.”

7. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.

The journalist and author has described herself as “stupid once” after she allowed herself to accept an MBE, which she later returned.

Alibhai-Brown said she partly accepted the honour to please her mother before returning it and she now speaks “with the zeal of a convert”.

The journalist wrote in 2006: “I was stupid once and allowed myself to accept an MBE, partly to please my mum, who was always afraid that my big mouth would get us deported from here, as we were from Uganda.

“Then the poet Benjamin Zephaniah shamed me live on Channel 4 news, just as the Iraq war was building up and my republicanism was solidifying.

“I returned the lovely object and have had to put up with scorn ever since, some deserved.

“But I now speak with the zeal of a convert. The Honours system sucks and we should start again, devise a fair and independent new method to annually acclaim exceptional citizens for their contribution to the nation, not to overweening political parties or the semi-skilled, dysfunctional Windsors.”

8.Paul Weller

Matt Crossick/Matt Crossick
Paul Weller.

The musician rejected a CBE in 2006.

In a statement a spokeswoman for Weller said: “Paul was surprised and flattered, but it wasn’t really for him.”

9.French and Saunders

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Dawn French (left) and Jennifer Saunders.

Comedy duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders turned down OBEs “for services to comedy drama” in 2001. Saunders later revealed why they turned down the honour offered to them.

18. JG Ballard

Ballard, a self-proclaimed republican said he could not accept an honour awarded by the monarch.

“There’s all that bowing and scraping and mummery at the palace.

“It’s the whole climate of deference to the monarch and everything else it represents.

“They just seem to perpetuate the image of Britain as too much pomp and not enough circumstance. It’s a huge pantomime where tinsel takes the place of substance.

“A lot of these medals are orders of the British Empire, which is a bit ludicrous.

“The dreams of empire were only swept away relatively recently, in the 60s. Suddenly, we seem to have a prime minister who has delusions of a similar kind.

“It goes with the whole system of hereditary privilege and rank, which should be swept away.

“It uses snobbery and social self-consciousness to guarantee the loyalty of large numbers of citizens who should feel their loyalty is to fellow citizens and the nation as a whole. We are a deeply class-divided society.”

20. Ian McDiarmid

ERIC RISBERG/AP
Ian McDiarmid.

The actor and director, perhaps best known for his role as Palpatine in the Star Wars film series, has turned down an OBE. It is not clear why he declined the honour.

21. Audrey Callaghan

PA Archive
Audrey Callaghan (right) and the American ambassador to London, Anne Armstrong.

In 1979 - shortly after her husband James led the Labour Party into the start of an eighteen-year period out of office - Audrey Callaghan refused a Damehood from Margaret Thatcher.

22. John Lennon

AP
John Lennon.

John Lennon is one of the few honours recipients to send his back, returning his MBE in 1969 in protest against Britain’s foreign policy.

He reportedly wrote to the Queen, informing her: “Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts.”

23. Hughie Green

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Hughie Green.

The Opportunity Knocks presenter snubbed an OBE in 1960, at a time when he was reaching new heights in his entertainment career as the host of “Double Your Money”.

24. LS Lowry

Toby Melville/PA Archive
LS Lowry paintings.

Between 1955 and 1976 the painter turned down honours five times: an OBE, a CBE, a knighthood and Companion of Honour (twice).

25. Aldous Huxley

AP
Aldous Huxley.

The Brave New World author refused a knighthood in 1959.

26. Evelyn Waugh

AP
Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh.

The Brideshead Revisited scribe snubbed a CBE in 1959.

27. CS Lewis

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CS Lewis.

The creator of the Chronicles of Narnia series of books declined a CBE in 1952.

CS Lewis reportedly rejected the honour so as to avoid association with any political issues.